Earth and Water
by Alipeeps
Summary: A routine mission goes wrong when a freak storm puts the entire team's lives in danger. Gen team fic, H/C, Sheppard whump.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is an old one - like, 5 years old. But I realised that I'd somehow never posted it here. I remembered writing it but couldn't find it on here... managed to find it on LJ and thought I'd add it here too. This was written for a secret santa fic exchange and the prompt was for a story where Sheppard gets hurts whilst saving a team member.

* * *

The heavens opened without warning. One minute they were walking easily over gently sloping terrain, chatting and joking, looking forward to getting back to Atlantis in time for a late lunch, and the next a deluge of icy cold rain hit them seemingly from nowhere. Seconds later lightening arced across the murky sky, making Rodney flinch, and a low growl of thunder rumbled from one side of the valley to the other.

"Jeez!" Sheppard squinted up at the rapidly darkening sky, the heavy rain already beginning to flatten his hair, streaming down his face, making him blink rapidly. "Where did that come from?"

The light was fading rapidly, heavy clouds rolling in on a quickening wind, turning the cool freshness of early afternoon into the bitter chill of early evening. Rodney hunched his shoulders against the cold, grimacing as he felt icy rainwater trickle down his neck and under the collar of his jacket. "Oh great," he complained bitterly.

"Alright guys, let's pick it up a little," Sheppard suggested, increasing his pace up to a brisk walk. Ronon shrugged deeper into his heavy coat and followed suit, Teyla falling into step behind him. Squinting against the driving rain, Rodney huffed his displeasure as he brought up the rear.

"Remind me again whose idea it was to walk instead of bringing the jumper?" he groused.

Teyla didn't look around at him, her head bowed against the pounding rain, but her voice was as calm as ever as she reminded him, "It was not possible to safely land the jumper near the outpost, Rodney."

"Well, we could have flown at least some of the way," Rodney grumbled, unhappily aware of just how far they still had to walk to reach the gate, "instead of walking all the way from the gate."

"McKay…" Sheppard's exasperated growl was almost lost in another heavy rumble of thunder.

Rodney's teeth were already starting to chatter, the driving rain seeming to soak straight through his clothing, chilling him to the bone. The outpost they'd come to investigate had turned out to contain nothing of any interest, let alone value, to the expedition and Rodney was rapidly regretting ever agreeing to come on this mission; he had half a dozen important projects he could be working on right now and his lab on Atlantis was nice and warm. He shivered. He'd almost forgotten what warm felt like and he was certain he was already starting to get frostbite in his extremities.

The previously easy walk through open scrub and grassland was quickly becoming a tedious trudge as the ground turned to mud under the team's feet; thick and viscous, it sucked at Rodney's boots with every step and more than once he wobbled a little as his feet slipped on the mud. This sucked.

The rain stung against the skin of his face like a million tiny pin pricks; it was coming down so hard that Teyla, walking just a few feet in front of him, was just a blurred shape moving through the watery gloom. Ronon, beyond her, was little more than an indistinct blob and he couldn't see Sheppard at all.

Just when Rodney thought he was as miserable as it was humanly possible to get, the ground underneath his feet simply disappeared. It happened without warning, his feet slipping sideways in a wash of mud and loose earth as the sodden ground crumbled. His cry of alarm was swallowed up by the pounding thrum of the rain and suddenly he was falling, sliding down the face of a precipice that hadn't been there seconds ago.

He landed on his side, the impact knocking the air out of him, and was carried helplessly downhill, dragged along by a growing torrent of liquid mud and debris. He flailed wildly, scrabbling for purchase, but there was nothing solid to grab onto, the water-saturated soil and gravel losing cohesion and joining the downhill surge. He was gathering speed, bumping off unseen obstacles, mud and water sloshing over his face. He choked and gasped, spitting dirt out of his mouth, and let out a desperate scream.

Scrunching his eyes shut against the deluge of mud, his flailing hand brushed against something and he clutched at it in desperation, rough bark scraping his palm as it slipped through his grip. He held on as tight as he could and was rewarded with a sudden jerk that nearly pulled his arm from his socket as his body swung around, his downward slide abruptly halted, leaving him dangling helplessly. He opened his eyes to find he had managed to snag hold of a low scrubby brush; bowed and bent by the force of the mudflow and by his weight dangling from its twisted branches, it was somehow, for the moment at least, still clinging on to the now steep slope.

Thick, soupy mud was still flowing rapidly down the surface of the slope, pulling at Rodney's body, surging over his arms, and spattering against his face, forcing him to lift his chin clear of the flow for fear of suffocation. There was no sign of the mudslide slowing; if anything it seemed to be growing larger, flowing faster. Rodney's arm was already beginning to ache, his hand cramping as he clung on desperately to the bush. How long before his strength gave out and the tide of mud carried him away… or until the torrent of mud and rainwater washed the bush's roots free of the remaining soil and dragged it – and him – to a muddy grave?

"Rodney?!"

The sound was so faint that he thought he'd imagined it. Then it came again, a little closer this time, a hoarse cry whipped away by the wind, almost lost in the thrumming of the rain, the surging slap and roar of the mudslide.

"Rodney!"

He coughed and spat mud.

"Down here!" he cried, weakly.

For a long moment there was silence and Rodney despaired; they couldn't hear him. They'd never find him in this deluge.

"Rodney!"

He almost cried with relief.

"Hang in there, buddy! We're coming to get you!"

Sheppard. Thank god. Rodney gritted his teeth against the bone-deep cold, the growing ache in his arms, the insistent tug of the mudflow pulling at him. His team had found him. Sheppard would save him.

He hung there, clinging to a thin, wet branch, for what felt like an age, hearing nothing but the relentless pounding of the rain and the odd rushing, slapping sound of tons of mud sliding past him, seeing only the grey murk of the saturated skies above and the dirty brown sludge below. Eventually, just as he was beginning to wonder if his team had given up on him, a shape appeared through the gloom somewhere above him. As the shape slipped and slid closer it resolved into a figure – tall, lean and with ridiculously spiky hair that not even a torrential downpour could entirely flatten. Sheppard.

He slid and scrambled closer to Rodney, barely managing to stay upright as the mudflow tried to pull his feet under him. As Sheppard got closer, Rodney could see that he was hanging onto something, some kind of rope… except they hadn't had any rope with them and this was too uneven and bulky… With a slightly hysterical giggle Rodney realized Sheppard had tied together clothing – his shirt and jacket, Teyla's jacket, Ronon's coat – to form a rudimentary rope and was using it to perform a slip sliding abseil down the hillside.

Sheppard was breathing heavily as he scrambled to Rodney's side, his clothes wet through and splattered with mud. He was stripped down to his BDUs and t-shirt and the exposed skin of his arms and face looked white and bloodless under the coating of mud. Hanging onto his jerry-rigged rope, he struggled to brace himself against the surging river of mud.

"Hi, Rodney." Sheppard's teeth were chattering as he spoke. "You okay?"

Rodney was wet, cold, aching, exhausted and terrified, the muscles in his arm were cramping up and he couldn't feel his fingers anymore. He was about as far from okay as he could imagine right now. He gave Sheppard a glare and rasped, "Oh, just peachy!" Exhaustion robbed his retort of any real bite. Sheppard, the gung-ho idiot, grinned, rain sluicing down his face and dripping off his nose.

"What say we blow this joint?" he suggested breezily. Rodney was shivering too much to do much more than nod. Still using his improved clothing-rope to balance himself, Sheppard offered the end of the rope – a sodden shirt sleeve – to Rodney to grab hold of. But his arm felt as heavy as lead and his free hand was stiff from the cold; try as he might he couldn't get his fingers to properly grip the sodden material. His other hand was by now completely numb, clamped in a death grip around a bit of scraggy branch. He couldn't feel his fingers to move them and, to be honest, he was scared to try; for what felt like forever his tenuous grip on this stunted little shrub had been the only thing keeping him from a cold, muddy grave.

"I… I can't…" he croaked.

"Hang in there, McKay" Sheppard ordered. "We'll try it another way."

With a lot of scrambling about, his feet sliding dangerously in the mud, Sheppard somehow managed to slip the end of the clothing rope under Rodney's outstretched arms and loop it over his back, knotting it securely into a loop. He gave the rope a single tug and Rodney felt it pull taut under his armpits.

"Okay buddy, now for the hard part."

The hard part? Surely it couldn't get any harder than this?!

"You gotta let go, Rodney."

The thought terrified him. If he let go, he'd die, he'd be washed away and drowned in mud. Besides, he was pretty sure his fingers would never move again from their clenched position – the cold and the strain had turned them numb, cramping the muscles in place.

His hand was so cold and numb that at first he didn't even feel the touch of Sheppard's hand on his, not until Sheppard started to pry a finger loose – and then the feeling returned to his hand with a vengeance in the form of sharp, stinging pain as the cold, stiffened muscles were forced into movement. Cold terror gripped him as his hold on the branch was slowly loosened and for a split second, as his grip relented, he was fully expecting to plunge to his death. But the clothing rope tightened around him, taking his weight, and then fear of imminent death was quickly replaced by agony as the abused muscles in his arm shrieked in equal parts relief and torment as they were relived of supporting his entire weight.

Scrambling to stand astride him, Sheppard gave the rope two sharp tugs and, with a lurch and a jerk, the rope tightened again and Rodney felt himself being pulled upwards, against the flow of mud. Progress was slow and tortuous; the mud cascading down the slope pulled at him, reluctant to let him go, it slopped up against his chest, splashing onto his face, making him grimace and spit, craning his head backwards to keep it clear of the mud. The rope moved in fits and starts, jerking him up the slope in increments, and Rodney could only guess that Ronon and Teyla were somewhere at the top hauling it in hand over hand. He tried once or twice to help, scrabbling to get his legs under him, but his body was bruised and battered, chilled and aching, and he simply hadn't the strength. All he could do was hang at the end of the rope and let them drag him to safety.

Throughout it all, Sheppard was there with him, moving alongside him, hanging onto the rope to steady himself as he slipped and staggered uphill. More than once Sheppard lost his footing and fell, the fast-flowing mud pulling his feet out from under him, leaving him clinging to the rope along with Rodney until he managed to get his feet back under him and struggle upright.

After what felt like an age, two blurry shapes appeared through the gloom up above. With each jerking pull of the rope, the shapes became more distinct, until finally Rodney was dangling just below the lip of the precipice, blinking up at a bedraggled Ronon. Rain dripping from his dreadlocks, Ronon's teeth were bared in a grimace as he hauled in the rope.

The last few feet were the hardest. The rain-soaked earth was dangerously unstable, the lip of the precipice crumbling and dissolving each time Ronon and Teyla tried to haul Rodney's weight up over it, mud and dirt raining down onto Rodney's face. In the end Sheppard moved behind him, bracing himself as best he could on the loose, slippery mud, and letting go of the rope in order to lift from behind.

Twice they almost made it, Rodney's weight teetering on the lip of the slope before the ground under him once again crumbled, his weight dragging him back down into the mud. The second time, there was a muffled yell from behind him as Sheppard lost his footing. Only by grabbing hold of Rodney's ankle did he avoid getting washed downhill himself.

"Sheppard, we got this!" Ronon shouted as Sheppard hauled himself to his feet. "You need to get out of there!"

"I'm good!" Sheppard insisted. "Let's give it one more try."

Rodney braced himself once more as Ronon and Teyla heaved on the rope and Sheppard pushed against his legs. Little by little, Rodney was dragged and pushed jerkily upwards until his torso had cleared the lip of the slope, the ground holding steady under him – for now. If he'd had the energy he would have kissed the ground in relief. As it was, he was all too conscious of his legs still dangling out over the steep drop. Sheppard was hanging onto his ankles, using them to balance himself even while he continued to shove Rodney further onto solid ground.

With one last tremendous effort by his team, Rodney slid the last few inches to safety. Wet, cold and exhausted, he lay helplessly in the mud like a landed fish, gasping for breath. And then, for the second time in one day, the ground simply fell away from under him. He gave a yelp as another couple of feet suddenly crumbled from the lip of the slope, collapsing under him, his legs once more dangling down the steep incline. There was a startled cry from behind him and suddenly he was sliding backwards, a heavy weight pulling at his legs.

"Sheppard!" Ronon yelled desperately.

Rodney felt like he was being pulled in half; the rope of twisted clothing was pulled tight under his armpits and the weight he knew had to be Sheppard was a deadly anvil dragging him downwards. And then suddenly the weight, the pressure around his ankles, was gone. The clothing rope lurched and Ronon and Teyla quickly dragged him to safety.

"Sheppard!" Ronon dropped the rope and ran to the cliff edge.

Rodney struggled to get up, his limbs stiff and slow to move. Teyla rushed to his side, helping him to roll over. He blinked up at her. "What happened?" he gasped. "Where's Sheppard?"

The despair on Teyla's face was answer enough.

* * *

Continued...


	2. Chapter 2

"Can you see him?" Teyla asked anxiously. She spoke over her shoulder, her attention focused on Rodney as she helped him, stiffly and gingerly, sit up.

Ronon was prowling the edge of the steep drop, one hand shading his eyes from the pounding rain as he peered down the slope. "Nothing," he growled.

Teyla swallowed down the tight lump of fear that rose in her throat. He'd be okay, she told herself. John was a survivor and he'd come through worse than this before now.

"I gotta get down there." Ronon was pacing impatiently, still staring down at the mudslide, his body tensed as though he were considering following Sheppard's route down the hill. She wouldn't put it past him.

"It is not safe, Ronon," she cautioned. "We will find him. But we need to find another way down."

"Yeah," Rodney wheezed anxiously. "Believe me, you don't wanna go that way."

"There must be another way," Teyla said. "A way around the landslip area. Ronon?"

"I'm on it." He set off at a fast lope, following the uneven edge of the precipice.

"Be careful!" Teyla called after him. "The ground could still be unstable."

He was gone from view within seconds, swallowed up by the gloom and the sheeting rain. She wished she could go with him but Teyla knew that time was of the essence if they were to find John and Ronon was their best tracker and their fastest mover. And right now, Rodney was in no shape to keep up.

He was still shaken from his experience, shivering with a combination of shock, cold and exhaustion. With the torrential rain still hammering at them, there was no way to get him warm and dry but she did the best she could to bring circulation and feeling back into his limbs, rubbing briskly at each arm and leg in turn. His face was white as a sheet, dirty brown water dripping from his chin as the rain washed away the coating of mud.

"Do you think you can stand?" she asked.

Rodney nodded shakily. He looked terrible, his clothing sodden and covered in mud, his hair plastered flat to his scalp, but his face was set with determination and she knew that, no matter how awful he might feel, Rodney was as desperate as she to find Colonel Sheppard.  
She had to help him to his feet and his first few steps were a little wobbly but, with Teyla holding his arm across her shoulders, they got moving. Their progress was awkward, Rodney's movements stiff and unsteady, and slower than she would have liked but nonetheless they set off determinedly in the direction in which Ronon had disappeared.

They'd been walking, well perhaps hobbling was a more accurate description, for no more than 20 minutes when Teyla's radio crackled.

"Found a way down," Ronon reported succinctly.

"We are on our way," Teyla replied. "Is there any sign..?"

"Not yet. Keep walking till you come to a rock outcrop. The area's stable and there's a narrow path down the rockface."

"We will be there as soon as we can," Teyla promised. "Do not wait for us to get there. Just find him, Ronon."

It took them another 15 minutes to find the rocky area Ronon had spoken of. They walked in anxious silence, all their energy focused on putting one foot in front of the other, squinting against the rain to see where they were going. Their pace increased as the exertion warmed Rodney's muscles, alleviating some of his stiffness. Visibility was poor and they were nearly on top of the jumbled rock of the outcrop when it loomed out of the gloom. After slogging through mud and sodden earth, it was a relief to step onto solid ground.

"Wait here while I find the path," Teyla advised. "Do you need to sit?"

Rodney shook his head. "If I sit down now, I may never get up again," he complained. "Go. I'll be okay." He waved her off.

The path was hard to find in the driving rain. The mound of rock rising up out of the mud extended further than she expected but when she rounded the side of it she found what looked like a fairly steep slope down into the valley below. The slope looked to be formed of a mixture of solid rock and loose scree and shale. Not great, but definitely better than soft, rain-saturated soil. What Ronon called a path was, to her eyes, little more than a narrow trackway crossing the scree slope in a vaguely downwards direction.

Rodney's face paled by another couple of shades when she led him around the outcrop and showed him the "path". She was tempted to suggest he stay behind but splitting the team even further in these treacherous conditions was not a good idea. They'd nearly lost Rodney once and Sheppard had endangered himself to rescue him, possibly even… no, she wouldn't consider that possibility. They'd find him.

It took a further 20 minutes to descend the scree slope. They moved one step at a time, Teyla going first, testing her footing with each step, Rodney following close behind her, one hand holding onto her shoulder. A cold wind seemed to funnel up from the valley below, whipping the rain into icy pinpricks that stung at exposed skin and made them squint their eyes almost closed. And throughout the descent there was no word from Ronon, no announcement that he'd found John.

Teyla's heart was racing, from anxiety as much as exertion, by the time they reached the valley floor.

"Ronon, we have made it down to the valley. We're coming to meet you."

"I'm at the bottom of the landslide. You can't miss it."

Rodney looked dead on his feet and Teyla once more slipped her shoulder under his arm as she turned them to face down the valley. Somewhere ahead of them, John was lost in the aftermath of the mudslide, almost certainly injured, hopefully still alive.

It took them over an hour of searching to find him. The scale of the landslide was horrific, a wide swath of devastation that left a churned up trail of mud and debris down the face of the hillside. Ronon had already searched the bottom edge of the debris field by the time Teyla and Rodney reached him and had begun to climb upwards, searching higher up the slope. Rodney was in no fit shape to be doing any kind of climbing so Teyla left him on the valley floor, scouring the lower reaches of the mudflow, as she scrambled uphill on the opposite side of the landslide from Ronon.

It was a miracle they found him at all. Visibility was poor in the heavy rain, at times reduced to as little as three or four feet, and he was so coated in mud that he blended in almost completely with the churned mass of earth and debris that scarred the hillside. So much so that Teyla didn't see him until she was almost on top of him.

He lay on his side, half buried in the mud, one long arm flung out to the side. He wasn't moving.

"Ronon!" Teyla shouted across to her team-mate as she hurriedly dropped to her knees beside John's still form. She cast a quick glance across the mudflow and was relieved to see Ronon heading rapidly downhill; she'd harbored a not entirely irrational fear that he would try and cross the landslide in his urgency to get to Sheppard.

Her heart pounding in her chest, her hand shook a little as she reached to press her fingers against John's neck. His skin was slippery to the touch, slick with mud and rain, and for a moment she struggled to press hard enough to check for a pulse. At first she felt nothing and a cold knot of dread clenched in her stomach. She tried again, moving her hand and pressing a little harder. Was that? She pressed down firmly. Yes. Ancestors be praised. A pulse. It was faint, but it was there. Sheppard was alive. The relief that washed over her, after hours of worry and fear, was almost physical, a release of tension that made her head swim. She breathed out shakily.

Tapping her radio, she called her team mates. "He is alive!" she reported.

"We're on our way," Ronon replied.

Her worst fears assuaged, she began to check John for injuries. His lower body was mostly buried in the mud, the tip of one boot all that was poking out, so she started from the head and worked her way down as far as she could. His face was turned away from her and she hesitated to move his head, for fear of aggravating a spinal injury. She leaned over, one hand squelching into the mud as she used it to balance herself, and brushed back hair plastered down by rain and mud to find John's eyes closed, his face relaxed in unconsciousness. His skin was smeared with mud and… she leaned in for a closer look… and blood; smudges of pale red, diluted by the rain, were visible under the mud coating the right side of his face. She searched for an injury and found blood crusting in the hair above his right ear. Somewhere on his way downhill, he'd hit his head.

His right arm was stretched out in front of him, the other lay somewhere under his body. Here and there, where the rain was gradually washing the mud from his skin, she could see evidence of scrapes and scratches on his bare arm. His t-shirt was snagged and torn in places too, suggesting further damage done on his tumble down the hillside.

Ronon and Rodney arrived just as she was starting to try and dig John's legs free. They lurched into view from out of the gloom and the mist of the sheeting rain, Ronon bent forward to fit his shoulder under Rodney's arm, half carrying him up the hill. They staggered to a halt and Ronon shucked Rodney's arm from his shoulder, lowering him none-too-gently to sit on the sodden ground. Rodney was breathing heavily. "I hurt in places I didn't even know I had," he groaned stiffly.

Ronon took in Sheppard's condition in a glance and, without waiting for her to ask, dropped to his knees beside her and began digging at the mud with his hands.

"How is he?" he asked.

"It is hard to tell," she said. "He has a head injury and some cuts and scrapes. More than that I cannot yet see."

She continued digging away mud and debris, trying to free John's legs. With Ronon helping, they made swift progress, scraping away handfuls of thick, gloopy mud, dotted with gravel and rock, splinters of smashed and broken branches, until they exposed the sodden fabric of John's BDUs. His legs were splayed at odd angles, one flung out to the side, one bent at the knee, the tip of his boot poking up out of the mud. Somewhere in his chaotic tumble, he'd lost the other boot. The wet fabric of his BDUs clung to his legs, torn and ragged in places.  
Teyla ran her hand quickly over John's legs. She found no obvious signs of injury; no open wounds, no broken bones. Just more cuts and scrapes and no doubt what would become a fine collection of bruises.

She sat back on her heels and tried to brush her rain soaked hair out of her eyes with the backs of her wrists, blinking tiredly against the water running down her face. The rain had been constant now for over two hours and if anything it seemed to be getting even heavier, over-saturating the muddy earth and trickling over its surface in little streams and rivulets. The water was ice cold and with the wind chill factor she was already shivering, her fingers beginning to feel numb.

She thought she heard something, a faint sound, over the incessant drumming of the rain. Uncertain, she crawled on hands and knees back up towards John's head, cocking her head to listen again.

There it was again. What sounded like a low moan.

"John?" She leaned forward.

"Nnnnghhh…."

"John! Can you hear me?"

"Is he awake?" She was aware of Rodney scrambling awkwardly to peer over her shoulder. "Sheppard? Are you awake?"

"Mmmph…"

John was stirring, his hand twitching. Teyla leaned forward to see his eyes blinking sluggishly open.

"John? It is Teyla. Can you hear me?"

"Mmmm…. Teyla?" John's voice was groggy, his words slurring.

"I am here, John. Just try and stay still. Are you in any pain?"

He frowned a little, his eyes still half closed. "Ngh. Is… is Rodney okay?" he mumbled.

Teyla smiled. "Rodney is just fine," she reassured him, ignoring the sounds of indignant protest from just behind her.

"I'll bet." John's mouth twitched in a hint of a smile and then screwed up into a grimace.

"John? Are you in pain? Where does it hurt?"

He groaned a little. "Pretty much everywhere," he admitted woozily. "Feel like I went 10 rounds with Ronon…"

"No chance. You'd be out cold in 6," Ronon said evenly and Teyla looked back to find him looming over Rodney, grinning widely, rain streaming from his dreadlocks.

John huffed a kind of breathless laugh, his face twisting again.

"John, we need to move you but I am worried about spinal injuries," Teyla told him. "Do you have any pain in your neck or back?"

He thought about it for a moment, his eyes closing as he frowned. "Not really," he said. "No more than anywhere else, at least…"

"Can you feel your fingers and toes?" she asked. "Can you move them?"

John flexed the fingers of his right hand and winced a little as he wiggled his toes. "All present and correct," he reported wearily, "except for my left arm which feels kinda numb."

"Numb? What does that mean?" Rodney panicked.

"It means he has been lying on it for hours, Rodney," Teyla soothed. The pounding of the rain was beginning to give her a headache.

"What about your head?" she pressed John.

He winced. "Headache from hell. What hit me?"

"Half of the hillside, I think," Rodney said unhappily.

"Can you move?" Teyla asked. They really needed to get John and Rodney back to Atlantis and get them checked over, before all of them caught their death in the freezing cold and wet.

John scrunched up his eyes and blinked, as though trying to clear his head.

"I… I think so… I…" he muttered. He gritted his teeth and pulled his right arm in close to his side, his movements stiff and jerky, his muscles chilled and aching. With a huff of effort, he tried to get enough leverage to push up. Ronon stepped past Teyla, the mud sucking at his boots, and bent down to offer a hand.

With Ronon's help, John struggled to push himself up. He managed to lift his chest off the ground, relieving the pressure on his left arm, and then without warning what little color he had drained from his face and he let out a yelp of pain, his right arm giving way and dropping him back to the ground.

"John!"

"Sheppard!"

Teyla scrambled closer, anxiety making her heart pound. John's face was white as a sheet under the mud, his eyes screwed shut and his breath whistling as he panted through clenched teeth, a high keening sound escaping him as he tried to ride out the pain. She laid a hand on his shoulder; his body was rigidly tense.

"John? What's wrong? Where are you hurt?"

He opened his mouth, gasping for breath. "My… my arm," he gritted out. "I… I think it's… broken…"

Teyla cursed inwardly, one of the more colorful phrases she had picked up from the expedition's staff of marines. As if in answer, thunder rumbled again from one side of the sky to the other and lightening flashed, blindingly bright. She looked up in disbelief at the roiling clouds above. Impossible though it seemed, the storm was getting worse.

Thunder came again, this time directly overhead, this time no rumble but a reverberating crack like a gunshot fired by the gods. The rain, already heavy, became a deluge, turning the air to water, bowing their heads with the sheer force of it. It was like standing under a waterfall.

It was more than the saturated soil could handle and the earth beneath Teyla began to slip and move. She was vaguely aware of Rodney's yelp of fear and Ronon's curse but her overriding concern was for John. Surface water was already beginning to pool around his body and he was coughing and spluttering, trying to keep his chin out of the deepening water.

She had to shout to be heard over the rain. "Ronon, we've got to move him, NOW!"

Ronon nodded, moving unsteadily to straddle John's waist. As he reached down to hook John under the armpits, Teyla struggled against the increasingly unstable slope to touch a hand to John's face. "I am sorry," she told him.

He nodded tightly, knowing what was coming. "Do it," he rasped.

Hunching against the beating pressure of the rain, she struggled to her feet and took a sliding step backwards. Bracing himself as best he could, Ronon heaved John up out of the mud, John screaming as the pressure was removed from his broken arm and it swung loosely under him.

"Sorry, buddy," Ronon grunted as, in one smooth motion, he twisted John around and hoisted him up to sling him over one shoulder. John cries of pain made Teyla's stomach roil but there was no time for subtlety right now. They had to get off this hillside before another landslide carried them all to their deaths.

Ronon set off at as fast a pace as he could manage, his feet slipping and sliding as he headed downhill. Teyla turned to follow, nearly losing her balance more than once as the ground moved under her. Rodney had struggled to his feet and was desperately trying to keep his balance, his eyes wide with fear, and she slipped and scrambled over to him.

"Come on!" She pulled his arm around her waist, wrapping hers around his waist in return, and together they hurried downhill, each trying to balance the other as the ground moved with them, mud sucking at their boots, rapidly-deepening streams of water threatening to wash their feet from under them.

It seemed like it took forever to reach level ground; a never-ending scramble to stay upright, to keep moving forward, with the ground turning to liquid under their feet and the sky a solid wall of water. Before long she was gasping for breath, feeling as though she was breathing in more water than air. Her muscles were trembling from exertion and the long exposure to the cold and wet. Rodney was shivering so hard that she could hear his teeth chattering even over the relentless roar of the rain.

The air was so thick with water than she lost sight of Ronon and John within just a few strides, Ronon's longer legs carrying him more quickly downhill. She hoped. She couldn't help a frisson of fear that she would reach the bottom and find them missing, victims of another sudden landslide.

The ground leveled out so suddenly that she stumbled and almost fell. She looked around wildly, searching for Ronon and John, and felt relief flood through her as she spotted them not far away. Ronon had obviously shared her fears and had been waiting for her and Rodney to make it down safely. He gestured over his shoulder and turned on his heel, heading back in the direction of the rocky outcrop and the path they had taken down to the valley floor. John hung limply over Ronon's back, his arms dangling helplessly, and she couldn't tell if he was even conscious. She rather hoped not, imagining what the jolting motion of Ronon's rapid gait must feel like with a broken arm. She tightened her grip on Rodney, who was panting for breath, and pushed them once more into motion, following in Ronon's wake.

When Ronon's voice crackled over her radio, she could barely hear him over the noise of the rain. "Head for the rocks," he told her. "There the closest thing to shelter we got around here."

"Ok," she replied, uncomfortably aware of the shiver sounding in her voice. "Don't wait for us. We'll get there as fast as we can."

"I know."

As exhausting as their trip down the valley had been, the return trip was twice as bad. It was uphill most of the way, only a gentle incline but enough that each step was more of an effort. To make matters worse, the entire valley floor was fast becoming a shallow, fast-moving river and much of the time they waded rather than walked, the deepening water soaking right through their boots until Teyla could barely feel her feet anymore.

By the time they reached the bottom of the rock and scree slope, Teyla was stumbling with exertion and Rodney was even worse, only their death grip on each other keeping him upright as he tripped over his own feet. Ronon was waiting for them, waving at them to follow him. Shivering and exhausted, they followed him along the base of the scree slope to a where a jutting boulder caused a slight overhang. In the space beneath, huddled up against the slope, sat John, his face drawn with pain, his left arm cradled against his chest.

Her hands felt frozen in place, numbed to the bone from the freezing rain, but Teyla gritted her teeth and forced her fingers to unbend, letting go their grip on Rodney's jacket, and as carefully as she could, she lowered him to the ground beside John. He was white-faced and shaking with cold but managed to shuffle himself back against the slope, getting as far under the overhang as possible. It was poor shelter, the ground beneath no dryer than anywhere else and the wind blowing the rain in under the overhang, but at least they were protected from the full pounding force of the downpour; it hammered against the overhanging rock, creating a spray of water that sheeted outwards in a fine mist.

"The gate's too far," Ronon told her bluntly. "I can move faster on my own; get to Atlantis, bring back help."

Teyla nodded. He was right. With John injured and Rodney exhausted, it would take too long to get to the gate. Hypothermia was becoming a real danger and John's injuries needed proper assessment and treatment. "Hurry back," she told him.

He grinned. "Take care of them." With long strides, he was partway up the slope in just a few seconds, leaning forward and using hands and feet to scale the stony pathway. In moments the sheeting rain swallowed him up, hiding him from view.

Moving slowly and stiffly, Teyla crouched under the overhang and lowered herself gingerly to sit beside John. He was pale and tense, holding himself rigidly, and up close she could see the lines of strain on his face as he tried to ride out the waves of pain. He smiled wanly as Teyla settled herself beside him.

"Hey," he greeted hoarsely.

She smiled. "Fancy meeting you here." The phrase didn't make much sense to her but she'd heard it used a couple of times by members of the Earth expedition and from the context it seemed to be a popular joke. Evidently John thought so too, if his weary chuckle was any indicator.

"What's a guy like me doing in a place like this?" he grinned tightly.

"Dying of hypothermia, probably," Rodney replied morosely.

John shook his head. "Ronon'll get help," he insisted.

"Yes, he will," Teyla agreed calmly. And the sooner the better, she thought to herself. "How is your head?" she asked John.

"Wobbly," he said.

"Wobbly? What do you mean, wobbly?" Rodney demanded.

John had his eyes shut now, his head tipped back against the back of their cramped little shelter.

"John? Do you feel dizzy?" she asked.

He moved as if to nod, winced and apparently thought better of it. "Yeah," he mumbled. "Head's spinning a bit."

"Probably got a concussion," Rodney predicted pessimistically.

"Well, that and being carried upside down for while," John commented, his eyes still shut, his breathing measured and deliberate.

"Do you feel nauseous?" she asked.

"Oh god," Rodney moaned. "If you do, please try and throw up outside the cave. This paltry shelter is the nearest I've been to warm and dry in forever."

"Noted," John whispered.

"John. If you feel up to it, I need to have a look at your arm."

He opened one eye and regarded her wearily. She could sense his reluctance.

"I will be as gentle as I can," she promised, "and if we can splint it, it may help with the pain."

After a long moment, he nodded.

Her aching muscles complaining, she got stiffly to her feet and moved to kneel in front of him. The skin of his forearm was already mottled with bruising, turning purple and black. Despite her gentle touch, he hissed and tensed as she moved his arm away from his chest, turning it carefully. It was easy to see where the break was, John's forearm bent at an unnatural angle at about midway along its length. She grimaced. It was obvious that both the bones were broken. Thankfully, the skin was not broken but still, there was little she could do here. She could not safely set both bones in the field.

She pressed her fingers carefully to John's wrist, seeking out the pulse. It was there, a little fast but strong. That was a good sign; the blood flow was not compromised.

"Can you move your fingers?" she asked.

John huffed something that was not quite a laugh. "Don't know," he admitted shakily. "Haven't really felt like trying."

She sighed. "I need you to try for me."

"I know." He closed his eyes for a moment. "I know."

With a deep breath, he opened his eyes. "Okay," he said. Biting his lip, he gave a growl of pain as the fingers on his left hand twitched and then flexed. Teyla smiled. That was also a good sign. With the proper treatment, there was every chance that John's arm would heal fully.  
There was little more she could do other than to make him comfortable until help arrived. She fumbled a field dressing from her tac vest. Like everything else she was carrying, it was sopping wet, but nonetheless she managed to fashion a rudimentary sling, looping the length of bandage around John's neck and knotting the ends together. He couldn't bite back a yelp as she carefully moved his arm to slip the loop of bandage around it and settle it under his forearm. By the time she was finished he was breathing heavily, his face pale and waxy-looking.

"Thanks, Teyla," he gasped.

She smiled. "I wish I could do more."

"How long has it been?" Rodney asked quietly.

She looked at her watch and tried to calculate how long it would take for Ronon to reach the gate, for a medical team to prep and load the jumper, the flight time from the gate to their location…

"Soon, Rodney," she promised, "soon."

The wait seemed to go on forever, the passage of time marked only by the constant thrum of the rain, the occasional flash of lightening. Gazing out at the churning mass of storm cloud above, Teyla had a moment of despair as to whether a jumper could even fly in this terrible weather.

"Don't worry," John murmured quietly. She glanced at him in surprise; he'd been so quiet, she'd thought perhaps he had dozed off. He was looking up, as she had been, watching the storm thunder and crash above. "Take more than a little bit of rain to stop Lorne," he grinned.

She smiled. He was right. Their friends would come for them, no matter the weather, no matter the danger.

She was still smiling, John sleeping fitfully beside her, Rodney's head drooping onto his chest, half an hour later when the wind whipped up even more ferociously around them, driving the rain into their shelter with stinging force. And through the rain and wind, a dark, bulbous shape emerged, hovering in the air, descending slowly into view, until it settled heavily to the ground just a few feet from their little cubbyhole. A crack of light appeared through the gloom and grew steadily larger as the rear hatch of the jumper descended to reveal a warm, bright interior, and Ronon striding out before the lip had even touched the ground, a cluster of medics following on his heels, medical bags at the ready.

She felt warmer already.

* * *

 _Fin_


End file.
